The Attic
by Leah Tripp
Summary: A short, horror story kinda based on Frankestein but set in the modern world. This is a story I wrote a couple years ago so it might be a little kiddish. Enjoy anyway!


The Attic

It was a dark and creepy day, although you would not think it was day as the clouds in the sky were gray and menacing, like hatred welling up in the eyes of an enemy, when Liza Rose walked to her newly bought house. A huge mansion rose to greet her as she walked up the stone pathway. A feeling of dread settled in her gut along with a sense that she was not alone. She shook her head and laughed, "I'm being silly."

A tall, wooden door met her as she climbed the steps. The knocker, an intricate design of twisted silver, caught her eye as she neared the house. Opening the door, a cool draft of air rushed out to meet her. She took a deep breath as she plunged into the dark gloom of the house.

As she stepped into the hallway, a mirror caught her eye. A tall, dark haired, green-eyed woman peered back at her. Considered very beautiful by her peers, she took no real notice of her beauty, focusing on more important matters like her career as a college professor in Ancient Arts of the Greek Culture, at least by her standards. Little did she know her beauty did not go unnoticed by all.

Later on in the day, as she examined all the rooms that she knew by heart, her eyes clouding over with distant memories. Images flashed past her, a tall figure disappearing through a door, a bloody tear falls on a rose, cries from a child. She blinked back her tears and an unwavering expression settled on her face. "This is going to work." She said fiercely. Coming back to her childhood home was very difficult for Liza but she was determined to come back and live in this house that she used to love so much. She would never know until it was too late, that she was never truly alone in the house.

In her attic, there crouched a fearsome foe. Tall, muscular and insane… A psychopathic killer had taken up residence in her house while it was abandoned. He had been all alone with his frightening nightmares of his past and had grown more ruthless and evil as the years went on. His victims tortured for hours on end, sometimes going insane themselves while he kept them in their cages. Their screams went unnoticed in the remote house….

Darkness came soon to the house. Her mood was gloomy as she thought of more cleaning she had to do even though she had spent the entire summer cleaning the house, except for the attic. She had vowed she would never go in there again. Her father had hanged himself in there when she was just five years old. She had come upon his dead body, the rope creaking and swaying in the breeze from the open window. Her mother had found her sitting next to his body some minutes later, just staring at him with wide eyes. In a blink of an eye they had moved out of the house, trying to run away from all the bad memories but everyone knows the memories always catch up with you.

Now, years later she was once again in the house of death. Sitting in bed, she was rereading all her student's papers. The professor glanced at the wall, absentmindedly, and noticed a small hole peeking out from one of the many old tapestries in the house. She put the papers aside and rose out of her bed to investigate. Now as she was thinking about it, she remembered seeing other small holes throughout the house. At the hole now, she peered inside and saw a long, dark passageway. She recalled now that there a couple secret passageways throughout the house. Her father had been more than a little paranoid and delusional. Always thinking that there were people out to get him, he'd often had queer and more than a little scary habits, the passageways just one of the many examples.

A dark shadow flinted across her vision and she thought it looked like a man but a second later it was gone and began to think it might not even have been there at all. She decided to investigate even though there was a cold feeling of dread settling in her stomach.

Crossing the hallway and walking upstairs to go to the closet where the entrance was, Liza though she heard footsteps so she stopped to listen but suddenly they disappeared." What was that about?" she wondered, shaking her head she opened the closet doors and found the small door entrance and crawled through. Floating specks of dust swirled around her and settled on her so when she came out of the small tunnel she was covered in dust and cobwebs. "Ughh" she signed exasperatedly and started to brush herself off but suddenly sneezed violently several times in a row. "Great! Just great!" she nearly yelled.

All of a sudden she felt a cold shadow envelope the little hallway into darkness. She turned around slowly and stared in the face of a monster……. He was extremely tall 7'5 at least, freakishly strong and looked pretty pissed. Liza tried to speak but found she couldn't. She barely saw the blur of movement before there was an explosion of pain on the side of her head and than she saw blackness and than nothing at all.

When she woke up she was bound on the cold, hard ground. Shivering she tried huddle closer to herself and tried to recall what had happened. There was a huge pain on the side of her head and she saw a small pool of blood lying next to her where her head had been. Taking a look around she realized there was something lying next to her, squinting her eyes in the dim light, a body slowly formed without its head! She cried out in horror and suddenly realized the head was on the other side of her, its mouth leering in a silent last scream, the face distorted with pain. Another thought raced across her mind, she was lying in the poor owner's own blood, the crimson liquid seeping into her clothes! She sobbed and tried to move away but found the floor was littered with sharp glass, as well as the blood, and stabbed her in the back as she tried to move. Knowing it was fruitless; she slumped back in tears and defeat, waiting for her impending death.

As the silence wore on, she started to form a plan in her mind to escape from this hell house. "The murderer made one mistake" she thought "Leaving me with a way out and a weapon" she gloated. Finding a sharp piece of glass, not very hard for there were tons of jagged pieces lying around, she started to saw away at her bonds and towards freedom. In a hurry, she cut her wrists more than once and soon blood was flowing down her hands forming a pool of blood on the ground, connecting with the even bigger pool she was lying in. Finally, what seemed like hours later, her bonds finally fell off her bloody hands. Wincing as her wrists throbbed with pain; she struggled to untie her feet than got up and starting running toward and open doorway, ignoring the pain in her feet from the sharp glass as they embedded themselves in her feet.

More bodies were strewn about as she half ran, half limped towards the small crawlspace that was her freedom. Breathing heavily, her heart thumping so hard she thought it would burst, she came upon the doorway. Extremely worried now that she hadn't seen her captor in a while, as she crawled through the small hatchway, she picked up her pace. Squeezing out of the small passageway she practically flew as she ran to get out of the house. Her fear so thick you could almost cut it with a knife.

Breathing hard, she scrambled to open the locks on her door. "Why oh why did I put so many freaking locks on this door?!" she screamed. The darkness seemed obsolete as she stepped outside like it went on forever. She breathed a small sigh of relief but little did she know her misery was not quite over. Jumping the porch steps tow at a time she misplaced her timing and tripped and fell the rest of the way down.

Trying to get up she realized she had twisted her ankle and could not run anymore. She cried in frustration and anger. Than she realized she was not alone anymore. Facing the killer, she yelled, "You son of a b…." she never finished her sentence for at that moment a huge sledgehammer slammed into her head, darkness fell and her lifeless eyes were dulled from death.

"Did you really think you would leave here, alive?" he laughed at her body that was already becoming cold from death's grip in the cruel, black night air. His maniac laughter echoed from the still woods and evil had claimed another life, than the silence of the night took over.

The End


End file.
